Deriving Truths From Literature

Abstract

In this short paper, I shall review the major attempts to supply epistemic respectability to literature. All share two common features: first they do not work, and second, they all attempt to derive the truths we prize directly from the work of literature. Reacting to these features, I shall review an account which permits an indirect derivation of truth from literature. Desirably, this account will be consistent with the logical criteria of interpretations of literature. Undesirably, the account brings to an end the myth that literature can in any straightforward way provide us with new truths. The question of deriving truths from literature is related to another question: whether the statements of literature are propositional, that is, capable of truth or falsity. This latter question acquires importance only because the notion of derivation demands a propositional starting point if the so-called "truths" to be derived are to have sense. Writers such as Mellor would have the sentences of